another day another reality

Ok to re-encapsulate .. this is fragmented over time .. I have no idea when this started and the time periods but it is terribly disjunct and contains much stuffs from times of happiness, sadness and despair .

But to quote Eminem from "don't be afraid"

I'm not afraid to take a stand
Everybody come take my hand
We'll walk this road together, through the storm
Whatever weather, cold or warm
Just let you know that, you're not alone
Holla if you feel that you've been down the same road

ok so this is sorta cheating the first part was written a few weeks ago.. at this stage it is much longer than that..


Here I sit half the way round the globe from where i started .. technically not quite .. but 45% of the way round the globe sounds stupid.
Still coming to grips with the similarities and differences in the way things are and people are and how different our lives will be, are, were and all the other econoclastic self .. suppose i should have written iconoclastic .. but prefer my word.. it has a slightly and more subtely different meaning, if any at all.

i·con·o·clast (-kn-klst)
n.
1. One who attacks and seeks to overthrow traditional or popular ideas or institutions.
2. One who destroys sacred religious images.

from the free dictionary .. and i am not really up to destroying sacred images.. well not at this stage .. and the holy cows .. have not seen any here yet ..

how different would it not have been if we would speak of holy Fish!!!
omHF ..

somewhat more fundamental on the way we look at and experience things, here in the land of milk and honey/ no scratch that .. the land of milk, yes there is a lot of that apparently if you wiki Kiwi-land and a lot of sheep ..

and honey .. well sure there is some here . have seen people selling honey at the flea market ..

maybe the land of milk and fishes .. apparently there are a lot of them here, but soemhow have not really had the chance to partake in the activity of limiting the life of one of the creatures of this planet .. now that really sounds sad .. but that was my iconoclastic moment for the day ..

give a man a fish at these prices and he will really enjoy fish ;-)

But how bland is my walk in the valley of spicelessness, it is such an interesting place, the smell of melange, well i lie, coffee permuates the city, fancy restuarants and places..

But for frig's sake where the frigin hell do i find the spices in the shops .. it is as if these people just don't really like cooking, but like to eat nice food. We still trying to figure that one out .. and for once in our existence the value of an overtly academic take on vegetative growth in the garden may actually pay off with the absurd pricing of veggies over here .. oh have i already spoken about that ..

this piece was written now ..

yeah though i wonder through the valley of green hills and endless blinding rain and gale force winds i shall suffer no cold.
I am shivering in my new state of tranquility
i have moved from a first world third world to a third world first world..

But am i happy ..

That is a terrifically complicated question, when our state of mental happiness is relative to what? what we wished it to be, what be believe it was, to what is dimmed in our minds..

things are so incredibly different to the way we perceive things to be and have been ..

how do we judge happiness.. what is a measure of happiness?

how do we determine if we are happy or not? we often judge our state of happiness relative to where we imagine ourselves to be or where we wish to be, nothing to do with rationality. Here I stand in a state of flux .. actually better off in many ways .. yet i wallow in a state of uncertainty and melodrama :-)
i just think i need to go fishing ..
i do miss my friends .. even though i would most prob not see them all that often due to work..
i miss the3 certainty of the uncertainty in SA .. there is so much uncertainty in the certainty here .. :-)
things are predictable .. except for the weather LOL well i suppose it is predictably unpredictable

But this is not new, a lot of what i am deliberating about now is nothing different. how do we measure the quality of our life ?
there are many things
there are many measures, yet how do we judge?
are we happy because of where you are, or in spite of it?
Often we can pass blame onto the environment and not take responsibility for it? But then again there are various scales in terms of our existence.. and at least i took my towel with me ...
and i was lucky not to have to wash dishes this time round .. well in practice i suppose i am washing dishes at times .. but not as sole occupation

But enough on the self flagulation and lets get back to the real life and get happy

yesterday Anita went to the shops and we went to look for some food .. foraging like the hunter gatherers we are .. she saw some Skate wings for a good price in the fresh fish holder ..
so she went ahead and asked the kind Maori lady standing behind the counter what she thought of it? she replied .. never tasted it :-) this might have been a warning ..
i went forth and asked if she was aware of what a Skate it ..? a kind of a Ray .. etc etc .. to little effect .. so we went home .. and they are rather weird tasting .. so for all those who have never had them .. be careful ..
it is rather gelatinous in texture and taste :-) not all bad .. but as weird as you would expect something like a skate to taste :-)

but u know what they say skating on thin uys and all..

back to the whole identity thing, how important is a name? how important is our identity to us? to some it is very important to others the lack of identity is as important. The anti-identity and how much we are what we are not. Do we identify with ourselves and create our identity based on what we are or what we don't stand for.

-- ok this is totally disjunt.. I continue on from where i am now .. even though intended to cement what was done last time


But I think I'm still tryna figure this crap out
Thought I had it mapped out but I guess I didn't
This fucking black cloud still follow's me around
But it's time to exercise these demons
These motherfuckers are doing jumping jacks now!


I think I got a tear in my eye, I feel like the king of
My world, haters can make like bees with no stingers, and drop dead
No more beef flingers, no more drama from now on, I promise
To focus soley on handling my responsibility's as a father
So I solemnly swear to always treat this roof like my daughters and raise it
You couldn't lift a single shingle on it
Cause the way I feel, I'm strong enough to go to the club
Or the corner pub and lift the whole liquor counter up
Cause I'm raising the bar, I shoot for the moon
But I'm too busy gazing at stars, I feel amazing and

(Hook)

I'm not afraid to take a stand
Everybody come take my hand
We'll walk this road together, through the storm
Whatever weather, cold or warm
Just let you know that, you're not alone
Holla if you feel that you've been down the same road



Ok so enough of that the up and down and inside out of the life down under and finding context, in a time in a land of discovery i stand unknown and lonely knowing there is a life out there to live.
I stand

I know I am alone
I stand looking towards the East the sun comes up I stand alone

The beauty assaults my senses daily

I stand alone over my mountain bike and wander in the wonder in this thing we call life in these the choices we made for good or for bad and realise that we are lucky.. the ones with choices. WE may complain and stand up tall, crawl away within the depths below, but we have choices and we have taken them all. I listen in interest of stories of other foreign nationals who have made there way to the promised land for a better life for their children splitting families only to ensure that there children have a brighter future. It is only in in our introspection and sorrow and wallowing that we sit mired in the depths of our own confusion.

enough of that crfap, back to the real world.

I discovered that there are fish less than 10 min drive from my house, including the walk down to the river, but they elude me.. but they are there ..
I feel like a pioneer not really been exposed to fishing like this ever before .. it is frigin weird and amazing all wrapped up in one .. in a little river only a couple of metres wide, a crystal clear river, there are frigin big fish ....#$%#$%#$%#

OMG this is weird .. there i stand and under my feet a few m away there are fish up to about 6lbs or bigger in 30 cm of water .. in the little crystal clear runs ..

talk about Bok - koors... Aesh .. it is amazing how paralyzed with anxiety one can become. just standing there in awe watching a huge fish bolt away because it saw you before you saw it ..
I am learning the hard way i suppose .. i should get someone to show me what to do .. but this way i suppose i am learning more :-)

more on the rest of life, our stuff has arrived.. it is super weird seeing things i had forgotten about, it kinda feels wrong having all this stuff here .. i was getting used to the spartan camping life in this new life :-) But it makes my family super happy and over the moon to see their things ..

it is weird to see some of the things that carry memories with them, both from our lives and other peoples lives. Memories are strange things, things we carry with us. Sometimes they act as the anchor, others at the drone and sometimes even the life raft that carry us through. Something so intangible yet so real.

I suppose now with the move i am no reaching the last few stages of dealing with the loss of my old life and anger is setting in at times, we have had sadness and happiness and confusion and any other possible scenario. Now we are almost done.

In context of all of this the weirdness pervades all spheres of our existence, the plumber who came to fix our tap the other day was a Zimbabwean and the MAF (the bio security people) dude who came to clear our container was also a Zimbabwean.

interesting that us as cuacasio-afrikanos feel uprooted and estranged from our homeland, I wonder how they must feel. They are now the new chiefs of their tribes, foraging further and further like the vikings, looking for greener pastures sending back riches to those who could not come along for the adventure of a lifetime, this one that is theirs and ours.

oh well i suppose i have to post this now .. and not later .. more to follow ..

i do think that i will start doing some travelogue type blogs in between

There is so much more to expect in the next few episodes ..

a dog running through a puddle of gravy,

the life of Christ in cats on a plate

my train journey

the Christians at the station.. so many more episodes to come

the peer pressure .

the adventures into molecular gastronomy,

the challenge of having a veggie garden on your window sill :-)

and much more happiness and sadness and all other emotions all rolled up in one